02/03 AAA TV Results (Hidalgo)

AAA TV (SUN) 02/03/2013 Palenque de la Feria, Pachuca, Hidalgo [AAA, Black Terry Jr. (flickr)]
1) Centvrión, Flamita, Lucky Boy ?? ?, Lancelot, Rocky LoboDark match. Teams may not be right. Mystery wrestler was an unmasked man with a white stripe thru his hair and purple suspenders.
2) Billy el Malo, Black Mamba, Gran Apache b Argenis, Atomic Boy, Súper FlyAstro de Plata (spine injury) was replaced by Super Fly. Gran Apache ripped up Atomic Boy’s mask and bloodied him badly. After the match, Dorian and Konnan came to the ring and fired Atomic Boy. The rudos brought Texano (in a street clothes) to the ring. Argenis challenged Texano to a match and dropkicked him, but Texano turned a ‘rana into a powerbomb without even taking off his jacket and left Argenis laying. (Didn’t appear to be an official match, just a fight.)
3) Fabi Apache, La Jarochita, Lolita b Jennifer Blake, Mari Apache, Taya ValkyrieJarochita’s debut after winning the 2012 QPPLC. Lolita was strechered out from the last taping but back here. Fabi beat Jennifer after some ruda miscommunication with Taya. Mari & Taya attacked Jennifer, and the tecnicas made the save. Sometime after this match, Dorian and Konnan fired Jarochita.
4) Dinastía, Mascarita Sagrada, Octagoncito b Mini Abismo Negro, Mini Histeria, Mini PsicosisDinastia beat Mini Psicosis with a Spanish Fly and again challenged for a title shot. Nicho Psicosis attacked Dinastia with the stapler after the match. Drago made the save.
5) Cuervo, Escoria, Espíritu b Daga, Halloween, PsicosisAfter the match, Dorian and Konnan came to the ring with the other La Sociedad rudos (Chessman, Silver King along with the 3 in the match.) They called Pepe Casas (ref for this match, which the rudos had lost) old and a relic, and fired him. Joaquin came to the ring with Mesias and La Parka. Before Konnan and Dorian could fire anyone else, Joaquin fired Dorian and Konnan. He then told the luchador rudos they would also be fired if they didn’t eject Dorian and Konnan from the building. The wrestlers turned on Konnan and Dorian, running the out of the building. AAA’s recap emphatically states this is the end of La Sociedad.
6) Drago, Fénix, Octagón b Pentagón Jr., Silver King, ToscanoDrago replaced Octagon Jr. Fenix beat Toscano with a spanish fly after a Silver King screw up. Silver King and Toscano fought after the match, with Toscano tearing off his Consejo shirt for at least the third time.
7) Chessman, Parka Negra, Texano b Cibernético, El Mesías, La ParkaMesias chokeslammed Texano, but Parka Negra broke up the pin with a chair shot. Parka Negra beat La Parka for the win.

Air Date: 02/17 & 02/24

The recap doesn’t make it totally clear, but I believe the firings on the show – except for Dorian & Konnan – were overruled by Joaquin.

I don’t have enough verifiable info to consider this news, so consider this an educated guess: the idea behind Dorian Roldan and Konnan being fired is they’ll be leaving to Los Angeles to start a separate promotion. This is surely the big project both have been hinting at for the last for the last few months. Konnan said it’d happen in February, and it’s February.

There’s a lot of fun we can have speculating what this promotion might look like – probably only separate as legally necessary, and probably in the same style as Perros del Mal where AAA guys work the top matches and local guys are used for the undercard – but I suspect we’ll be hearing more about whatever’s going on relatively soon. There has to be something coming soon, because there’s no other obvious reason this angle was done as suddenly and irrelevantly as it appears to have happened. The last major AAA show ended with La Sociedad holding all the titles and having defeated (or at least beat up) all their rivals, declaring themselves completely powerful over AAA and stating their intention of walking out together as soon as legally allowed. There’s no change to this dynamic on two tapings since, and no hint on screen something was coming. La Sociedad instead completely fall apart over the course of an hour and a half, with the some of the exact same guys who said they’d leave with Konnan and Dorian being those to run them out of the promotion, with no reason they should change their minds.

The last iteration of this group, the Foreign Legion, were forced to disband due to a main event cage match at TripleMania. La Sociedad broke up on a miscellaneous taping at the edge of AAA’s dead period, because after two years of the rudos costing people title matches or their hair, Konnan and Dorian fired Atomic Boy and Joaquin suddenly had the power to fire them. That makes no sense given the build up and is really deflating ending to the story. It’s harder for fans to invest in AAA’s perennial “promotion vs invasion” storyline when the storyline ends with a whimper.

There are actually good reasons for it to end this way. Dorian and Konnan will be back and invading again with their new group before long. I’d be shocked if it that didn’t happen by the end of TripleMania and I’m probably foolish to think it’d take that long. There’s no sense in doing a big ending for them if they’ll be back soon. It’s possible that the timeline on announcing the new group was moved up for some reason, so longer range plans had to be rushed – though Konnan mentioning February means they knew it was happening around now, and there should’ve been some groundwork laid in sense to build to this moment whenever it happens. (AAA usually does big builds to these storyline twists, so this part really surprises me.)

This reads rushed in the taping results. It may be slightly less so when it airs, if they break the firings over a couple weeks. All tapings seem to be two weeks of TV.

The ‘firing’ part bugs me – the rudos just cheated Vampiro out of his hair and took the Mega title on the last show, and did not get fired. There’s ways for this to make sense – Konnan & Dorian are upset about being stuck with AAA for another year, so they just start wrecking things to force Joaquin to cut them loose – but it doesn’t come across that way in what we’ve been given so far. And Joaquin suddenly having the power to fire him when they went thru a whole storyline previously about how even owner Marisela could not fire them. (Maybe there’s a loophole they’ll explain. They just haven’t explained one yet.)

There is no obvious reason why all the rudos, who two months ago were completely fine quitting the promotion and leaving with Konnan & Dorian, changed their minds here. Maybe it’ll make sense on TV. Maybe the idea is the rudos never intended to actually leave, but then that story needs to actually be told. It makes the rudos weak to suddenly be scared of Joaquin. If they were going to be anyone’s henchman, it needed to be another rudo – maybe Perro Aguayo Jr. or Parka Negra making a deal with Joaquin to betray Konnan & Dorian – because at least then they’re henchman to a main eventer and it fills the Konnan/Dorian vacuum for however long they’re gone. (Also, it’d explain why guys who were specifically supposed to be working for Konnan & Dorian – Parka Negra & Pentagon Jr. – are sticking around and not walking out with their ‘parents’. Neither luchador was part of the skit to run them off, so maybe there’s something there.)

Maybe I’m just holding AAA to a too high standard – they do try telling long stories, as opposed to just starting feuds and stopping feuds unhappily (hello Atlantis vs Ultimo Guerrero, bet you won’t end with a mask match for the 3rd year running.) I just think this was beneath their usual standards and am unsure why they couldn’t have done better.

On the actual matches: back in Acapulco, Dinastia and Mini Psicosis talked about their title match happening at the next taping. (It didn’t, and they hilariously kept airing that part of the process.) They’ve got 2 or 3 tapings before Rey de Reyes, but it’s starting to look like that match won’t go down until there. They still have the mixed mini/not-mini tag match to do at some point before it.

It feels like something’s gone wrong here with Octagon Jr./Samuray del Sol beyond just having conflicting indy bookings. Maybe it’s just something as innocent as a work visa paperwork, but he’s not a guy known for missing shows and this is now two in a row, both of which he really needed to be on to get some momentum behind his new character. Pentagon Jr. was hyping up his participation in the match as recently as Thursday’s Tercera Caida, so Octagon Jr. missing this show wasn’t public knowledge. Someone had to know, and everyone had to know by Sunday, but nothing was said.

The Toscano angle really needs to take another step forward. (That’s a long term angle they’ve remembered to slowly build up!)

Parka/Parka Negra and Cibernetico/Perro Aguayo are the two favorites for TripleMania main events, and I’d guess that depends on how willing either of the last two are to lose their hair when it comes to it. Texano vs Mesias rematch looks to be the big Rey de Reyes match, but there’s no sign yet of a tournament.

Next taping is 02/18 in Irapuato. AAA probably will release the lineup in a day or so.

@Stormy: Konnan talked about this on MLW.com radio. He said he’s going to be working out of an office in LA and implied it would be a corporate environment, and that Dorian joked with him that he’d have to keep normal office hours and dress appropriately.

Shows never make money. After venue costs. FLY-INS. Paying talent. Advertising. Etc………… That’s why you see big AAA or CMLL(usually as indie shows) every few years. They lose money and regroup again. Been a pattern for 20 years now.

The idea of Octagon Jr. is great. Atlantis needs a Jr too. But sticking to Octagon, was it a bad decision to pick an American with an “Indy Rep” who clearly wants to be in WWE? Octagon Jr. is the kind of gimmick you want full-time to be available to work tv and all the spot/house shows in Zacatecas, Culiacan etc…….. It’s good for local promoters looking for a cheap “name”.

“Octagon Jr. is the kind of gimmick you want full-time to be available to work tv and all the spot/house shows in Zacatecas, Culiacan etc…….. It’s good for local promoters looking for a cheap “name”.”

THIS.

It’s extremely short-sighted and terrible business to give the role to a guy who only does major TV tapings and seemingly always chooses tiny US shows over AAA when there’s a conflict. Not to mention Samurai has said time and time again his goal is WWE. I know – everyone’s goal is WWE – but Samurai is actually on their radar and if they decide they want him tomorrow – he’s gone.

Sure you can put someone else under the mask as Octagon Jr. (Fenix comes to mind) but you’re already prostituing what could be a good gimmick for a while since there’s never been an Octagon Jr.

@Rob: Well said. It was a total blunder giving it to Samaurai. Even worse, they explained in storyline that Octagon Jr. was Samurai, instead of simply introducing a Jr for Octagon. Gotta figure someone from Mexico will get the gimmick in the next few weeks. They should have someone doing it on spot/house show already, just so Pentagon Jr. can keep working.

@LLL: That’s what I’ve never understood about the current regime in charge of AAA. Everything they do is so focused on TV/major shows. Their smaller shows are full of guys who are never on TV or guys who are in opening matches on TV but are expected to headline smaller shows. Here’s an example of a show this weekend:

Argos hasn’t been on TV in almost 8 months. Where’s the star power on this show? Who are the fans going to pay to see?

Not to mention with AAA spot shows you always end up seeing completely different results than what was advertised.

But Konnan will go on his radio show and talk about how house show business sucks and nobody will pay to see a show unless it has the lights/presentation of TV. I disagree. I think nobody is paying to see Fuerza Aerea vs Psycho Circus main events b/c those are shit main events to the average person.

They need to focus less on bringing in US indy guys who just work TV and get more guys like Drago, Aero Star, the Rockers, Elegido, etc. on TV and in promenent roles instead of just opening match nobodies. Those are all family friendly gimmicks and AAA shows are 90% families.

Drago was a guy who came in with a big push and was forgotten about less than 4 months later. He went from main eventing to subbing in an opener. That established him as being on a low level so what kid would want to see him live instead of being disappointed Parka wasn’t coming? Hopefully they’re on track with Drago now but I can’t help but think they’re only using him b/c Octagon Jr. isn’t around and as soon as Crazzy Boy clears hismelf to wrestle he’s going to steal the feud with Nicho.

@Rob: And I’m pretty sure La Parka Negra was created b/c there are issues with LA Park.

Wow, that’s a shitty house show lineup. Amazing how after all these years, they can’t tour like WWE or IMPACT.

Five years ago, I thought that AAA 2013 would be like Japan late 80’s early 90’s where you line up a bunch of cities and do a tour then rest a week or two. Start in Hermosillo and work down to DF. Or something like that.

Problem with AAA is that they still sell shows to local promoters who pick and choose based on their likes or prices or both.

Guys like Cibernetico don’t even need to wrestle on tv more than 5 or 6 times a year to be over. Same with La Parka and Mesias. Use the tv time for guys like Drago and others.

And speaking of tv, clearly the strategy is to do just two tapings a month for now. That’s a budget cut. And if you’re going to cut the number of tapings, pick the best spots for tv. Don’t go to Palenque of Pachuca in the winter. Use the fewer tapings to be more selective. Pachuca is an outdoor show! And it appears they could not rig their tv lights over the ring and had to place them up up up and away in the bleachers.

Still, we complain/critique AAA because we like them so much. No one should take these critiques personally. If someone in the office reads an idea that they like they should use it. Ignore what isn’t realistic. It’s a free focus group.